Video purporting to show actress Candice King speaking about Rafah is South African influencer with same name
Footage actually shows a South African travel influencer with the same name
CLAIM
A video circulating on X purports to show American actress Candice King emotionally speaking in a selfie video after a deadly strike on Rafah on Sunday, May 26.
BACKGROUND
A video appeared on X on May 27 showing a woman shouting into her camera in frustration over the lack of action around the world in response to the Israeli strike on a tent camp for internally displaced Palestinians near Rafah.
The video was posted by Sulaiman Ahmed, who describes himself as a journalist with an interest in geopolitics based in the UK. He has 549,000 followers on the platform.
The video purports to show the actress Candice King, who is best known for her roles in The Vampire Diaries. The post on X was viewed more than 3 million times.
The Israeli strike on Sunday night killed 45 people, news reports citing Gaza health officials said, and injured dozens more. Videos and images emerged after the attack showing burnt and dismembered children and babies, prompting a global outcry.
The health ministry in Gaza said that about half of the dead were women, children, and elderly. Until Israel’s offensive in Rafah earlier this month, the southernmost area of Gaza was seen as the last refuge with 1.4 million people sheltering.
In May, Israel had ordered evacuations for some parts of Rafah ahead of an impending ground offensive there, but many hundreds of thousands of people remained in the city which is one of the last places left where medical treatment and access to humanitarian services, operational in large tent cities, are available in the enclave.
METHOD
The first clue that the video does not show the actress Candice King is the woman’s accent, which sounds South African or, at least, from the Southern Hemisphere. The actress Candice King is Texas-born and grew up in Florida.
A search on stills of the video brings up many instances of it being reposted with the same claim that it shows the actress.
But the original can be traced back to an Instagram account with the username @candy_and_the_kings, which is owned by a travel influencer also named Candice King.
The bio says “South Africa’s most followed travel family” and “Using our voice to free Palestine”. The account has 367,000 followers.
The video was recently posted to the page in the aftermath of the Rafah attack. In the caption, she writes: “Go for it! Cancel our sponsors, tell us you don’t want to be our clients anymore, don’t support our businesses because you think I am crazy. No bro. This is completely normal behavior after seeing a video of the body of a baby without a head. If you aren’t mortified by that, YOU ARE CRAZY.”
The caption ends with a call to her followers to tell leaders to put an end to the bombardment of the Gaza Strip.
From this analysis, we can conclude that the video does not show the American actress Candice King, but does show another woman with the same name who is a South African influencer and content creator.
RATING
The video does not show the actress Candice King but instead shows a South African travel influencer with the same name.
SOURCES
X (formerly Twitter). (2024). Available at: ACTRSS CANDICE KING CALLS OUT RAFAH MASSACRE AND BEHEADED BABIES [Accessed 29 May 2024].
Instagram. (2024). Candice King | Travel Family on Instagram: ‘Go for it! Cancel our sponsors...’ [online] [Accessed 29 May 2024].